Today's lesson was fabulous. I had had a bad practice day yesterday - did some good B flats in "Condotta" if I just sang the second half; didn't do so well when I tried to sing the whole thing through. My midsection was feeling like it had no "give" in it.
When I explained that to my teacher this afternoon he said it was good that I had pinpointed the problem. He said the ribcage is supposed to expand, and have bounce in it, like a beach ball. Mine seems often to be very rigid. I have always had a very tiny waist, even though I am not skinny. My teacher said I have a very small ribcage - that some people have large ribcages that enable them to sing with a lot of force, and because I don't, I have to make it work. Think of the side expansion. He said maybe I am breathing too low. In any event, I sang through the aria from the beginning and the whole thing was smooth sailing. Maybe now this will be "the thing".
Really, my two biggest problems are tension and fatigue. There's a sort of buoyant energy that I so often lack, which I don't understand, as I get enough sleep and eat a healthy diet for the most part.
Another interesting thing is, when we were talking about breathing I said that something I didn't understand was that despite having superb breath control (that is really one of my strongest assets - one of the easiest things for me to sing is "Rejoice Greatly", which surprises people, although it doesn't go very high; the highest note written is an A flat)I have never been able to blow up a balloon. My teacher said that some voice teachers use blowing up a balloon as an exercise. So he said I should buy some and try to blow them up LOL! If I can think of where one would buy balloons I will do that.
But all in all, things are looking up. My teacher is very excited about this concert because it is getting him back to singing the tenor rep again. And he's already seeing it as the beginning of something, not an isolated one-off.
As for the bitter....I did something stupid, namely, I looked at the web site of this company where I had signed up to sing a tiny role in Carmelites and had walked out because I thought I was being treated badly and for what? to sing three pages of solo music? Anyhow, I saw that two young mezzos were sharing the role of Brangaene, which was the role I auditioned for originally. And I got to thinking about their lives. One of them is married to the director of this company and despite having a full time office job when she's not working she's living and breathing this opera company. Besides singing with them she also does a myriad other things. I guess I was thinking what fun it would be to have a partner with whom I could collaborate on something and that we could run around all the time and have that be our life instead of boring menu planning and vegging out in front of the tv. The other mezzo is young and buxom and married to another singer. I think part of my unhappiness and envy of other people (mostly women who sing who are younger) is that I wish more than anything that I could go back again and make different choices. Not smoke, drink, or starve myself so that I could be some uncomfortable weight (which was what got me started smoking to begin with); not be caught up with what was "cool" (we're talking about 1968 now), and not be browbeaten into being some politicized, self-ghettoizing, countercultural idea of a Lesbian. I mean there will always be a part of me that is attracted to women, but I could have been a curvy, healthy, attractive, more mainstream looking and acting woman who sang with a big lush voice, and was a serious musician and enjoyed being attractive and attracted to men and women without all the nonsense.
And then I read something posted on the Forum - I had promised myself not to trawl that any more as it just made me depressed, but I was looking for something specific - from a mezzo who talked about vocalizing up to a full voice D flat and singing an E flat in a "fast scale" and I know this is not unusual, and thinking about how in my voice my last "full" note is a B and the highest note I have ever been able to sing in a "fast scale" is a C.
What I have to remember is that teacher told me today that when I started studying with him again (this was in 2006) he really didn't know how much I would be able to achieve. He said he is actually quite surprised by the size of my voice and how much stamina I have developed.
So that's what I need to focus on.
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